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Wednesday, September 28, 2011

Vienna is an expensive city

Tiergarten Berlin

We are home again.

We saw lots of new and exciting stuff in Berlin this time including some more buildings that escaped complete annihilation by Bomber Harris during 1944 and 1945.

He would have been most distressed to learn that anything at all remained tall enough for a Meerkat to see over without standing on a banana box - but indeed some rather beautiful buildings have been lovingly restored – albeit with considerable amounts of bomb and battle damage – but this does add to their charm and character.

Our favourite place was called Einsteins. I don’t think it was related to Einstein Bros. in the USA because it did not sell bagels – but it had great coffee and croissants – and Cate had a jar of jam – because they always sell the croissants without butter or jam and they are a bit unsurprising without anything at all on them – but the jam caused a problem in security on the way out of Germany. She was allowed to keep it.

Our rather relaxed travel habits have finally rubbed off onto Liz and Darryl - who now roll out of bed at about 10:00 AM and approach the day in a decidedly haphazard manner.

It seems that they are now discovering the meaning of holidays (i.e. they are different from work – these are days where you get up at 6:00 AM and go to an office). And it is not necessary when visiting a foreign city to visit every single point of interest – some of which are not interesting at all.

We arrived back to discover that the Katzenjammers have fled back to Germany. The last of their possessions were being loaded into a truck as we got home and their apartment is now in darkness. So we are alone on the top floor of our building and will have to wait to see if we get new neighbours.

I also got the bill for the new keys. This was €617.94. This converts to $849 at today’s exchange rate. Vienna is an expensive city.

Oh and I forgot to tell you when it happened. The new SIM card for the Handy/Cell/Mobile phone was Fedexed to Peoria by my son Lenny and arrived on time. As decreed by the Foo Fairy I burned some chicken feathers and hog scrapings while singing the team song of the Peoria Indians (who at the time were playing Ohio across the road in Victory Field).

It worked and in the nick of time I was able to make my banking transaction and save the day – and my bacon.

6 comments:

Holy smokes! All this time, I'd been unaware of the Foo Fairy's demands. That must be why the Fairy keeps me such close company. Nice to hear you were able to help your friends discover the true meaning of the word "holiday". Are you going to post any pictures of your time in Berlin?

849?8 4 9 ?Eight hundred forty nine dollars?!?!?I thought it was outrageous that something that used to cost a dollar is now about a buck and half at Wal-Mart.My my, I told my wife about the 849 and she freaked out. Then I thought about the online school I am going to for HVAC and realized they might have a locksmithing program - YES!!! they do, and I realized for less than 849 bucks you could get a diploma in locksmithing. If you are too tired I could always enroll in that course when I finish up the HVAC thing in November, at least it would give me another reason to have another fake trip to Vienna and break into your house again, only this time I would be able to pick the lock! How cool is that? At least I wouldn't be out the fictional expense for the window glass. I also thought about the 849 dollars and the weight of the key(s) and wondered how they compared to the price of gold.

You must have security doors similar to ours. I'd rather not remember what it cost us to get a new lock and keys (and that they had to come twice because the first time around .... oh well, who wants to know?) when one of our darlings' handbag got stolen at the disco (Volksgarten - a sure place to "lose" everything).

Merisi: It's the peoples garden. Whatever is there belongs to the people.

esbboston: Come to think of it my tailor (well he does repairs) spends most of his time skiing. All he really does is a bit of sewing and new pockets. Thatsounds like a course for you - we have a sewing machine you van use.